Meandering musings of some guy named Doug residing in the 'burblands of Minnesota.

Friday, July 30, 2004

The Return of The Diner

No, that title is not a reference to a long forgotten detective flick from the 30's. It refers to one of the most interesting and unique radio shows I ever had the pleasure to hear. And (more or less) it's returning to the air via the internet in 2005.

The host of that show, a certain James Lileks, scooped himself via The Bleat this morning.

Salient part:

Then I digitize the old Diner shows and put them up on the site. Then I do a weekly “radio” show from the storage room, the only place in the house where I can shut the door and not be bothered. A man, a laptop, a mike. It won’t be live, but it won’t be edited. 2005: the Diner returns, for what it’s worth.

Once upon a time - it must have been about 5 years ago by now - the Twin Cities air waves offered superb and truly unique late night talk radio in the form of The Mischke Broadcast, and The Diner.

Mischke was (and remains) totally unpredictable, zany, offbeat, but also very smart and surprisingly subtle. He once did an entire two hour radio show without saying a word, and still made it compelling and hillarious.

James at the Diner was more laid back, but still very offbeat. His dry sense of humor was punctuated by references to the same sort of things that currently fill the pages of The Bleat.

Both shows bucked the trend of talk radio nationally, and at KSTP in particular by rarely talking about politics. And since both shows followed the excellent hyper-political Jason Lewis show, it was an interesting choice. But one that always seemed to work for me.

The Diner also held Saturday morning slot for a short time. I believe that was after it lost its late night weekday slot. In any case, those shows were also superb.

Anyway, Lileks will be putting the old diner broadcasts up on his website later this year. I'd advise anyone who truly loves good radio to give it a listen. Incidentally, you ought to check out Mischke too.